It's hard work to relax...

Isn't it amazing how much effort you have to put into relaxing? We're gearing up for Woodruff Beach Trip 06 this weekend, and I"m scrambling at work to get everything in order so I can relax on vacation. I think it would almost be easier to just work!
Ditto for our trip to the lake this weekend. It's been on the calendar all month, but for some reason I've had a total mental block, probably because I wasn't involved in the planning, so I just tuned it out. That meant Saturday I would vacilate between "oh, gotta do this before we go to the lake", and "oh, I'll just catch up on that tomorrow (crap! I can't, we're going to the lake!)". Net, net (you like that corporate-talk?), we had a day at the lake planned with Sterling's pals and their fams.
Lord what a long row that was to hoe! We didn't actually leave the house until well after 10am (read "I think I'm going to pass ooouuu..." for details). Then we had a long drive to Honey and Grandaddy's. Sterling decided to make a massive batch of mac 'n' cheese for lunch on the lake THAT DAY. He also decided we'd just stop in RR, make it while James visited G&H, and then we'd go on. Ok, sounds plausible.... MYTH BUSTED!! It was the complete opposite of relaxing.
Becky had to be staked out in the yard, and would freak out if I left her sight. The kids next door wanted to play with James... outside, and frankly, I was just too freakin' hot to deal with it (call me a grouch, I don't care... I hate the heat and I was already cranky to start with, it happens!). Sterling and Dad were trying to make the M&C, but Dad has not had the pleasure of making this from scratch before, and much to his and Sterling's chagrin, allowed the sauce to scorch... incurring the wrath of the man with the least amount of patience to begin with (Sterling). Sterling finally threw his burnt-ass mac 'n' cheese in the oven, I grabbed a glass of wine, and we all took a deep breath.
A little while later we packed it all back up and headed to the lake...where the relaxation kinda kicked in. Granted, with a 2-yr old, you never REALLY relax, but we did have fun. There are great pics in the photo collection. James got to ride his first jet ski, and had an absolute BLAST. Everyone was amazed at how big he is. Sterling's friend Tony said, "when ya'll walked up, I figured you were watching someone else's kid today, too, and that James must still be in the car.. he's HUGE!" He was social and chatty, charmed everyone around him (as always) and had a fabulous time. Becky seemed to enjoy herself, too... she did a little swimming, a little sniffing, a little running, and lot of laying down on the ride home. She was good and pooped, but we were happy to see her running around and having a good time.
So, all's well that ends well. It would have been really easy to be totally crotchety about the way the day started, but Sterling nailed it... James had a good time, we have fun pictures to prove it, and the bad stuff just kinda fades away....

Oh my, I think I'm going to pass ooooooouu....

I know that every mother dreads the day ( and yet it's inevitable ) when she will find her son bleeding from the head and covered in blood. For me, that day was today. While getting ready to head out for a day at the lake, Sterling had the back door of the Jeep open, our son REFUSES to watch where he's going, and I think you can see where THIS is going...
Yep, head wound. Crack! right on the door at full speed. And head wounds, if you know anything about these, bleed like the dickens. So I came downstairs, thinking "la dee da dee da, we're just finishing getting our stuff together", and found a scene from "ER" taking place on my kitchen counter. Sterling had James seated, ala hospital bed, on the counter and was holding a paper towel to his head. Beside him were already-used paper towels covered in blood, as were his and James' clothes. My first thought was, "do I throw up or pass out?". But Mommy Mode kicked in, and I just asked what I could do to help. Sterling was AWESOME. He kept him calm, cleaned him up, and all Mommy had to do was step in at the end with some snuggles for the final calming. Poor thing, he's walked into cars, walls, chairs, and tripped full-length, face-first over Becky yesterday. What's it going to take to get him to LOOK?!?!

Minute Manipulator ("mynoot", not "minuht")

While driving to The Rapids enroute to a "fun relaxing day at the lake" (don't get us started), James decided to entertain himself by licking his legs from knees to toes. Say it with me.. "gross". So we chastised him, several times, and on the last, most forceful command to stop, he erupted in tears. He cried for about 30 seconds, realized he wasn't get a reaction (because we'd pretty much numbed out by now), so he paused to let us know, "I'm crying!", then kept going. Just in case we hadn't noticed, right?

Families who cook together... clean ALOT

It's good for him to learn about cooking. I'm teaching him valuable lessons. We're bonding. He's learning to contribute to the household. This the mantra I repeat to myself when I'm cleaning up AFTER the cooking and the "helping".

On a completely unrelated note, after a thoroughly exhausting round of pretty much everything, including cooking, I crashed on the living floor and just lay there for a while, letting James drive cars over me. I didn't realize it, but I was humming the Mickey Mouse song ("hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!"... you know which I'm talking about), and apparently I do that alot (if you know which one I'm talking about, you probaby hum it yourself, it's pretty infectous). James stopped what he was doing and said, "NOOOOO MOOOOOMEEEE! STOP IT! STOP IT MEEEKEY MOOOHWS!!!"

Hot dog!

Thanks, GrandmaSis...

... for the SpongeBob dry erase board and MARKER. Luckily, this came off with a wet washcloth, and apparently that teeekowed (tickled).

Some people have too much time on their hands...

Was it really broken? Forget the birds and the bees.. how am I going to explain to a 2-yr old that one of his PLANETS went away?

Nine Planets? Count Again -- Minus Pluto
POSTED: 9:41 am EDT August 24, 2006

Pluto is no longer a planet.The International Astronomical Union approved new guidelines Thursday that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.The leading astronomers, meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since 1930, when it was discovered.In doing so, the group provided a new definition of what is and what isn't a planet.Pluto failed to make the new cut because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's. It will now be a founding member of the new class of "dwarf planets."The guidelines also require planets to have enough mass that they are close to round.Astronomers have been trying to draw a distinction between the eight "classical planets" -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune -- and Pluto, which is smaller than Earth's moon and has an eccentric orbit.Pluto has a large moon named Charon, and two small moons named Nix and Hydra were discovered in 2005.In January, NASA sent a probe known as New Horizons on the way to Pluto. It is expected to reach the object in 2015.

Funny you should say...

James picks up the funniest little sayings. They're not bad or wierd, they're normal every-day sayings that just sound funny coming from a 2.5-year-old. Yesterday I came downstairs while he and daddy were having a late lunch, which included self-fed yogurt. As you can imagine, he got a little on himself. He said, "mommy, I need a napkin, I need to ceenup*" (ceenup= Clean Up). How many two year olds specifically ask for a napkin? Funny.
So this morning, after he finished his breakfast, I put the plate on the floor so Becky could lick the crumbs. After about 2 seconds, James said, "that's enough, Becky. that's enough". It's what I tell her when she's getting a little toooo into licking the plate and starting to get annoying with the licky/slobber sounds. That's enough.

Moooooview review

Sterling took James to see his second movie today, Barnyard. It was rated PG for "mild peril". Mild peril? Doesn't the word "peril" make you think it's not mild? per·il ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prl) n. 1. a. Imminent danger. b. Exposure to the risk of harm or loss. I guess it could be mild danger, but then it's not really danger, is it? More of an annoyance. Anyhoo, I digress.
They got home, and James said, "Mommy! Movie! No cars." Cars was his first movie and has clearly set the bar. I said, "oh yeah, what was in this movie?". James: "cows.". He seemed to like it, but Sterling said he got a little wiggly towards the end. It didn't hold his attention the way a bunch of talking cars did.

Close encounters of the sleepy kind

Around midnight last night, I had a little visitor. I was awakened by "mommy? water! water!" (in hindsight, he sounded like he'd been crawling in the desert for days!). So I stumbled out of bed, and said, "ok, sweets, let's go in mommy's bathroom and get you some water.". We walked calmly to the bathroom while I got him a glass of water, which he downed like he was parched to the core. He asked for more, he got it, and then he set the cup down and said, "thank you", then started to shuffle back to his room. I thought, wow, this is going pretty easy. He shuffled back into our room, around the chest of drawers, and into the wall. Ooops.. door is a few feet to the right! I realigned him, and guided him back into bed where he went right down without any protest.

This morning we got out of our bed again, and went into his room to drop off lion and paci. I saw that little kitty was in bed (his little stuffed kitten), and said, "oh, sweetie, did little kitty sleep with you last night?", and he said, "yes, all long night. I slept with little kitty all night". Sweetie.

Darn that boy!

Now it's his TOOTHBRUSH in the friggin' penny jar!

Update

Oh yeah, Sterling rescued screwdriver... with some direction from James. What would we do without his help?

Nothing like a little toddler manipulation

James is learning the fine art of negotiation.. sort of. He's starting to get quite savvy about trying to get mommy to go places we really don't *need* to go, places with fringe benefits for him!

Tuesday ride home:
James: Mommy? Teetie? Go Teetie? (Harris Teeter)
M: No, sweetie, we don't have to go to Teetie today
J: Balloon? Balloon, Teetie? (now the truth comes out... I didn't *think* he was interested in crossing off the grocery list).
M: No, honey, no balloons, today, no Teetie.
J: Cooookie, mommy? Cooookie?
M: James, no, we're not going to Teetie (trying not to laugh).
.... quiet for about a block
J: Mommy? Haircut?
M: What? Haircut? No, James, you just had a haircut, why do you want another haircut?
J: Lollipop? Blululullululu Lollipop?
M: No, silly, no lollipops
J: YES!
M: NO!
J: YYYYEEEEESSS (in silly monster voice)
M: Noooooooo (also in silly monster voice)
at this point we both just start laughing until we cough.

Thursday:
J: Mommy? Ice cream?
M: No, James, no ice cream today (Goodberry's is right near the Teetie and we pass it on the way home. Lest you thing we ply our child with custardy goodness on a regular basis, I can count the number of times on one hand that we've taken him there. )
J: Mommy? that way? that way, please???
His new thing is that he really likes to give you directions... "that way"... perhaps he'll be an air traffic controller?

Friday:
We actually DO go to Teetie, where he gets his balloon (no cookie, they were OUT. Harris Teeter, this does not bode well for you when you are out of cookies.. that means we don't spend as much time shopping. Take a note!). As we are driving out of the parking lot...
J: Mommy? ice cream?
M: James, didn' t you have ice cream at Keatey's house today?
J: Yeeees.
M: Then no more
J: (pause)..... ice cream?

You gotta hand it to him, he's persistent!

Please excuse me, I'm having A Mommy Moment

I'm sure it happens to us all, eventually. Our mommy streak takes over and strikes fear into the hearts of young an old alike. So it was Beer Wednesday, James and Keaton were running around like the wild men they are (think Lord of the Flies), and one of them got hold of the flashlight.... and was not interested in sharing (yes, it was my child). We managed to negotiate 1 share, which was quickly brought to an end, and off they went again, James in the lead with Keaton trailing, hollering that it was his turn.
I should break for a moment and explain that my munchkin has a sinus infection and just started antibiotics. I can tell he's not himself, but he was just being mean-spirited. So I felt the need to put an end to this, quickly.
On the next cycle through the kitchen, I made my move. With cat-like reflexes, I reached in and snatched the flashlight from the little hands that were clutching it, and attempted to let them know that I was removing it from play altogether.
If you've been to a BW, you know that it can get loud. Not raucous pirates-on-shore-leave loud, but people are chatting, kids are screaming, they're huddled in the kitchen, and I was neither audible nor getting my point across. So I hollered...kinda loud.
"CAN EVERYONE PLEASE STOP JUST FOR A MINUTE?!? NOW, I AM TAKING THE FLASHLIGHT, NEITHER OF YOU CAN SHARE SO NOBODY GETS IT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? NOW GO PLAY IN THE LIVING ROOM".

silence

I've never really seen other adults look at me with such a deer-in-headlights look. I also didn't really know I had that kind of POWER (mwwwWOOOOHAHAHAHA!). And just like that, the moment passed, there were some nervous chuckles, and BW continued. Stacy, who was sequestered in the other room by a hungry newborn said, "you did exactly what I wanted to do". See, other moms get it.

Brush dah teef? Toofpase, please?

James just LOVES his new Dr Fresh Firefly toothbrush. I must admit, I also find it pretty freakin' cool! It's supposed to encourage kids to brush and help make sure they brush long enough, although that's never really been a problem for James. He does ask to brush more often now, though. This toothbrush lights up and blinks for 1 minute, AND it has *sparkles*... told you it was cool! James now requests that we turn off the lights in the bathroom so that we can see the blinking even better. It's like watching a jack-o-lantern brush his teeth, and I'm a little surprised that he's not succumbed to seizures with that light blinking right in front of his face, but I'm sure not about to pry it away from him anytime soon!

Oh, screwdriver...

So the other day, James comes to me chattering something about "pennies" and a word that was initially unintelligible, but I soon ascertained to mean "screwdriver". I thought, "what? pennies and screwdrivers?". Well, yes, that's exactly what he meant. When he showed me, he then said, "oh, screwdriver", like, oh, we'll miss you. And we will, because neither of can figure out how to get the stupid thing out. James the Builder is down 1 tool.. gonna be hard to work on the car...

An epiphany

One of the neat things about parenting is that in addition to seeing this younger generation you're raising, you also start to understand more about the one which raised *you*. You struggle with little things that make you wonder "how the heck did my mom do this?" or "wow... no wonder my parents used to get frazzeld when I'd...", etc. The one that I think is the most interesting is the one where we used to think of "parents" and "people" as two separate, disciminate entities. Parents <> people. Remember how we all used to think our parents were boring, and didn't get us, and never did anything fun? THAT'S US!! I remember being fun, and doing stuff, but I know that kids look at me toting my tot around and think I"m just some mom (I got called "ma'am" by a carful of teenages asking for directions this weekend!!). You have a kid, and everything really does change.
Yes, we still do stuff, but it's different stuff, and it's soooo not spontaneous! Often, we're too tired to do all of the things we'd like to do, or can't work it into our schedule, or just don't feel like we can fritter away the cash for a night out on the town.. we're responsible now! This week, I had a "night out" with my best bud Jamye (at her mom's... woooHOOO!), followed the next night by wine and scrapbooking with Liz and Bethany. I'm STILL tired.
I swear, for like the first year after James was born, I didn't recognize myself. I dragged butt everywhere, had no time for hobbies, and all I could think of was "where'd I go? who's that raggedy-lookin' chick in the mirror, and why won't someone let her know that she's got such awful bags under her eyes?" LOL. And then you start to work things in. Little things, here and there. A night out with the girls, a DATE with hubby, you start hobbies again (very intermittantly!), and you realize that there is some balance. But naturally, it's still typically a FAR second to the new man in your life.
I remember laughing at my mom for watching "Square Foot Gardening", "This Old House", and "The Victory Garden". I thought it was so dorky! I now look forward to getting MIL's hand-me-down This Old House mags, Southern Living, and I cannot get enough HGTV, FoodTV, and any science channels. My son is going to think I am the dorkiest, boringest woman on the face of the planet! What goes around certainly does come around!
When we all moved out or started to grow up and our parents "suddenly discovered" hobbies, I know many of us were thinking how nice it was that our parents had something to do now that we weren't around to give them purpose. Did we think they enjoyed doing our laundry? Reminding us to bring the lunches they made? Driving us around? They weren't *discovering* anything.. they were getting their lives back! And how cool for them! And how cool it will be for us when we get there.
But I'm not in a hurry.. I'm enjoying learning about the generations on either side of mine.

The chase is on...

Well, now every day I pick up James I'm barely acknowledged when I walk in the door. He looooves him some Keaton! Stacy says that during the day, they'll just hang out and suddenly one will turn to the other and say "chase?", and it's on! They just hop up and start chasing each other. They take turns being chaser and chasee, and the end result is typically one person falling down, and the other tumbling on top. Man, those are some silly silly boys. Stacy must just laugh all day long...

James is also getting even more verbose. I picked him up yesterday and here's our conversation on the car ride home:
me: did you have a good day, sweets?
J: yeah!
me: what did you do?
J: Keaty fell down. He got a boo boo.
me: he did? where?
J: his knee
me: oh no! did Stacy kiss it?
J: yes. momma? James fell down
me: you did? (little skeptical, but hey, it's likely)
J: yes, I have a boo boo
me: really. where?
J: (points to knee)
me: hmm.. did Stacy kiss it?
J: yeah.
then I hear the alphabet song which merges into Twinkle Twinkle, and eventually we settle on the Itsy Bitsy Spider. He doesnt' stop talking or singing until we get home!

So, we get home, and I decide that it's time for dinner. James has recently taken to pushing one of the kitchen chairs up against the counter so he can watch me if I"m cooking. A few days ago, he neglected to push it up against the counter,... but he still leaned on the back of the chair. Needless to say, "oh no, James fell down".
He helped me make "mussins" (muffins). He likes to mix with mommy. He gets his own bowl and a small spoon, and I put a dash of flour in his bowl. Well, he decided to sample the flour, and it was clearly not to his liking (very funny face!). So I threw in a small dash of sugar, which was INCREDIBLY to his liking, and he proceeded to upend the bowl and lick it out... giving himself a flour/sugar goatee. He helped me dump ingredients into the mussin mix, and sprinkled the struesel topping on top (more than half made it on the mussins.. not too shabby).

Today he helped me unload the dishwasher.. he handed me utensils (reciting the name of each one as he handed them to me!), but I had to draw the line at loading.. he kept wanting to grab the messy dishes! Goofball.

So he's chatty, he's got responsibilities, and he goes to bed on time and sleeps all night. Wow... what a grown-up little boy he's becoming. I'm just glad he's not to big to kiss his mommy.

Summer pics

Ah, I've been remiss in posting pics. The other day, James and I were enjoying popsicles on the back deck and I realized, holy cow, I am not taking half as many pics as I used to! Perhaps it's the camera that I've taken a death vow to dismember as soon as we procure a replacement. Perhaps it's the fact that all of the space on our hard drive is nearly full. Ah, mischief, thy name is Technology! Anyway, I whipped that sucker out, and after spending 5 mins booting it up, I took some cute pics of my favorite subject. Two weeks later, I posted them! Check out our shutterfly collection. cya!

WOW... supah slackah!

I just realized that July pretty much came and went sans blog entries. I'm sorry. James is off to college now, and we're trying to figure out what to do with his old room... oops! No, wait, my bad... I'm not THAT behind. It just feels like it.

James is sleeping soundly now, we have a whole bedtime routine, and we're all doing pretty darned well with it. He goes down between 8 and 8:30, and is first serenaded by mommy singing Harry Connick Jr's. "The Man in the Moon". He will often accompany me, and it's awfully cute/funny! Daddy pretty much refuses to sing along. We then get 1 reading of Snugglepuppy, from the fabulous Sandra Boynton (despite repeated requests for "more?"). We then turn on his Nora Jones CD, cut the lights, briefly ooooo and ahhh at the stars on his ceiling, then it's night night. Depending on his energy level, we may have 2-3 more "visits", wherein he'll stroll in the room wearing a poop-eatin' grin ("aren't I cute? how can you be mad at THIS?"), but he'll eventually settle down. We had the threaten with... the gate... for about a week or so, but we're pretty much past that now. In the morning, around 6ish, we'll hear a slight slam of a door closing (it's not enough to leave his room, he has to close the door behind him) feel a *thump* at the foot of the bed, accompanied by scurrying up to the head of the bed. If I don't immediately grab the little decorative pillow to plunk in between ours, he will sit there and sob "leetle peelow? leetle peelow??". So he gets his leetle peelow, and we all snuggle back to sleep. If he's feeling particularly raring to go, he'll hang out for about 15 mins, then say "wake up! brush teef! c'mon momma! " ... and the day begins, much to our chagrin.

How to stay cool when it's hot...

...it's all about accessories and attitude.

It's Potty Time!

Well! We had our first pee on the potty today! James just got a look like he might have to go (it's amazing the things you tune into as a parent!), so I said excitedly "let's go sit on the potty!! let's get some potty surprises!*". So we did, he sat down, and got a look on his face about 2 mins later that made him look deep in thought... then we saw the trickle on the rug, seat, etc! Did I mention he had a soccer ball on his lap, too? No, well, he did, and it got peed on, too. HOWEVER... WE PEED ON THE POTTY!!! We high-fived, and he got to pick out his potty surprise! Hooray!

* I have to give a nod to Nick's mom for this one... potty surprises are just little stickers wrapped up in tissue like presents. He gets to pick one when he goes potty.

Anger Management

Lord help me... I don't want to be mad at him, but sometimes he's just so darned onery! After a great afternoon (more on that later), we came home, cleaned up, and are hanging out in the living room downstairs. So I lay on the floor on my back to stretch out and rest for a sec, when BAM! Belly flop onto mommy. I remind James, no, that hurts mommy. He asks me to play, and I say give mommy just a sec.. mommy needs to rest for a minute. So he then STOMPS on my stomach! Yes, the one that was cut open to bring in into the world, and he has an uncanny knack for stepping right on the scar. As I'm trying to tell him, NO, that HURTS mommy, he giggles, wiggles away and pretty much just doesn't hear a word. Stinker. I'm so annoyed, that when he can't figure out why his ball popper won't work, I want to just let him stew, just out of spite (wow, I'm hard-core, eh?). How do you deal with a toddler who refuses to listen or acknowledge when he's just being rotten? Criminey!

On the plus side, he started daycare with Stacy today. He was so excited to see Keaton! I was also priviledged to witness his first real conversation with a peer! He and Keatey were running around the house (as always), when James slipped and fell. Keaton came over and said "are you ok?" and James replied "I'm ok", then they kept going. Stacy said they'd been doing that all day.. little 2 and 3 sentence conversations, but a good start! Cutie patooties!

After we got home, we went swimming, and James just walks around in the shallow end like he owns the pool! He's also getting GREAT about LEAPING off of the side (as long as mommy's there to catch him) and "swimming" to the ball he's thrown in. I think my little Nemo will be swimming by the time he's 3!

Negligent once again

Sheesh, where does the time go? Sadly, there are but so many hours in day, and somedays (or weeks or months) the priorities shift, and blogging takes a back seat. I realized this weekend, too, that I have not been capturing as many moments on film lately.. so I tried to reemdy that with a few snaps of the boy eating a popsicle after our bike ride today... sooo cute!
James is just a regular person. He carries on complete conversations with you, tells "jokes", can do so much by himself and I'm just amazed. He can count to 20, say his ABCs (although he hasn't quite realized that they're letters.. just another song), can sing the words to many songs, and wants to do everything by himself, or "holdit?". He can unlock the front door, and loves to open it when the doorbell rings (this could be bad if someone comes to the door while we're in the shower!).
His energy continues, unabated! It's so funny to listen to him when he gets excited, because he has that cute little voice with the slightest little southern twang to it (which could just be toddler pronounciation)... like he says "up da heeyow" for "up the hill". It's faint, but pops out in certain things that he says. He still looks just like his daddy, but acts more and more like mommy every day (read: nerdy and clumsy, with ridiculous energy and a desire to do too many things at once!).
He's also testing his limits. Somedays, he'll walk right up to you with a smile on his face, get a look like "hmm... I wonder what would happen if I...", and WHACK! He hits you. Or pinches, grinning the entire time. And it's not a malicious grin, you can tell that he really just wants to see what will happen. It's the oddest thing to watch, but you'd better believe we are soooo cracking down on this! I hope we survive it!

Yikes!

When James needs to "take care of business", you can just tell. So Sterling asked him, "James, do you have poops?", and James looked at him and replied "oh, yes". Eeek... you know it's going to be bad when James thinks it is.. .normally he could walk around for hours like that and not care. Sorry Daddy.

Camera shy?

Not much! I received a 'thanks' award a few weeks ago and picked up this awesome little beanbag chair for my mini-mister. Do you think he likes it? ... or likes getting his picture taken? On the plus side, I see ME! More emerging proof that he may contain a smidge of my genetic material (other than the total nerdiness)!

Long time no type

.. so I have alot of catching up to do! What's new.. what's new?

James: I cannot BELIEVE what a little man he is becoming. Still so little and cute and snuggly, but also so engaging and social! His vocab is HUGE and he's got great little manners. He was trying to lug his box of Legos between the couch and coffee table the other day, and Becky was in his way, and he said "excuse me, Becky! excuse me, Becky! EXCUSE ME BECKY!!!!".. because he knows it's not polite to say "move!". Even in total frustration, the manners remained intact! He has also started saying, "no thanks". I asked him if he wanted to carry his bag to the car this morning and he told me, "no thanks". Cracks me up! He says "please" about 95% of the time, ditto for "thank you" and "you're welcome!". He's our little man!

He's also back in the crib. We did the big boy bed thing for about a month, but decided we were tired of not sleeping (lots of late-night visits!), so we dumped his little tush back in the crib. Ahhh...slumber! There was also the sick thing, and we decided we needed to go back to square 1 for a bit to regroup before we tried the BBB again.

Midnight wanderings: James stayed w/ Honey and Grandaddy a few weeks ago and naturally, he never disturbs them in the middle of the night. That's not to say, however, that he stayed asleep OR in bed all night! At our house, if he wakes up, he tries to climb into bed with us and has a fit if he can't. At GD and H's house, he apparently peruses the house, entertains himself, and then quietely goes back to bed when he's done. The Woodruffs awoke to find that the Implements of Death drawer had been explored, someone had helped himself to a snack from the cat's bowl (thank goodness it was the BOWL and not the BOX!), and had taken a little trinket box off of the back of the toilet and brought it back to bed with him. So, a drawer lock went on the IoD drawer, and we were annoyed all over again that he can't just let US sleep when he's at home!

James has also turned into a little dictator. He will command you "let go!" or "stop!" if you're bugging him. So funny.

Take me out to the ballgame...

He's better! (and so is mommy)

Young Master James is on the mend. His fever finally broke last night. Poor little bug, he woke up crying, and when I went in to calm him down, the first thing that caught my eye was soaking wet hair and an equally wet pillow. I immediately thought, "oh man, he's thrown up in bed". The poor little man was just sobbing the pitiful and semi-quiet sob of the half-asleep toddler who's not feeling well (if you have one, you know how heart-wrenching this is.. if you don't, you'll have to trust me...it's pathetic). The way the shadows hit, he also looked like he needed a diaper change, which I figured was probably a given anyway if he'd tossed his cookies. So, mommy went to work stripping down the sleepy little sweetie, at which point I realized there wasn't a drop of yuck on him, nor was he messy... he was SWEATY. His hair was wet with sweat, the spot on his pillow was actually a basketball-sized drool spot, and he was COOL! ... as a cucumber, as my mom used to say when we got over a fever (talk about flashbacks!). He must have sweated it out and just woken up and gotten lonely. Poor little man! I dressed him back up, snuggled (flipped the pilow), and put him back in bed where he slept like a.... baby.
He was in a great mood, which boded well for Daddy... who watched him while Liz took me to the SPAAAAAAH for a little pampering (sorry, daddy!). So now we're ALL doing better...except for Daddy. Hopefully a good night's (month's) sleep will cure that. Mommy out.

Grossest moment EVAH!!!

Oh mah God, ya'll! (hehe.. does it sound like I've been here too long? tee hee!) Ok, Jamye and I have played whose kids do grosser stuff before, and I'm pretty sure that vomit and poop were prominent factors in that conversation, but ya know what? This one just beats everything!
Poor little man is not well. He woke up this morning kinda ok, but I thought nothing of it because he's been waking up ALOT for the past month (2-yr molars.. and holy crap... we are sooooo tired!) so I just figured he hadn't slept well. We go downstairs and start our daily routine when BLEEAAAACCCKKKK! Right on the kitchen floor. So, we mop that up, plunk the little bugger down on the sofa to watch cartoons while mommy gets to work. It wasn't but a few hours later when he introduced our sofa to his stomach contents, and mommy's day just got better!
Well, daddy was home and up early today, so we tagged teamed late morning so that I could work. James seemed to have a pretty good day, ate a little, and we thought he was on the mend.

Until we got to the grocery store.

It's our fault, we pushed it. We popped over to Tarjay for more baby motrin and tylenol, and thought, "he'd doing ok, let's pop over to the grocery store to grab something for dinner.. in and out!". Well, that should have been a reference to what James ate....mostly out. Onto mommy. Onto ALOT of mommy! So, we bolted from the store after the first wave, and he hit me with a second on the way out. Good Lord. My entire front was soaked to the skin. Poor little James was crying because he feels rotten and his fever was starting back up again so he was shivering (even though it's like 80 or 90 degrees outside). So, I pop open the back of the Jeep (which btw, has served me SOOO well since having a child. Seriously, it's the world's biggest more portable changing table, ahluvitluvitluvit!). At this point, I realize that if I want to keep down my own innards, I have to strip.. so I do. I grab the poncho I keep in the back (yes, I'm a big Girl Scout), drop it over my head, and pull off my shirt. I then strip poor James down and wrap him up in my trunk blanket. So there we stand, in the back of the Jeep in the grocery store parking long. Mommy in a poncho (in 90 degree sunny weather), and James naked in a blanket... don't WE look like a pair? After what seemed an eternity (probably about 3 mins) Sterling comes out and lets me know that, bless his little heart, he had to mop up after we skedaddled. So, puke all around! It's a family affair!
We doped up the little munchkin with drugs, and he is just as right as rain. Right before bed he WOLFED down some dinner and was running around like his usual nutty self. Updates as available, for now, send healthy vibes our way!

Time out for dog food

Mommy and James were on their own this weekend. The boys took their annual trip (aka "drunkfest") to Ocracoke and left us to fend for ourselves. We actually had an awesome weekend. It's an annual thing for the Beetle crowd (John Davis and cronies!) and they had a fantastic time, as always.
James is actually at that age where it's just like hanging out with a real person who carries on conversations with you and pals around, so we really did have a nice weekend together. It was also nice to actually be able to hang out around the house and not HAVE to get out so that Daddy could sleep (sorry, Daddy, but we all know how much that sucks, and it's not your fault!).
Well, Mommy took advantage of the freedom to stay home by cleaning and organizing some stuff which was long overdue. I guess I got a little into it, and didn't notice that James had snuck downstairs for a little snack. A snack of dog food. Now, you all know that his taste in dog food is not new, just endlessly frustrating. So, we spit out the dog food, and James had a time out where we reiterated "nonono" on the dog food.
Back upstairs we went, and back downstairs James went AGAIN when Mommy turned her back for a split second. I found him hunched over the dog bowls, where he'd taken the dry food in handfuls and dumped it into her water. I thought maybe if he had to help me clean up, he'd not be so keen to do it again, so we both grabbed handfuls of now-slimy wet dogfood and threw it away, but he just thought this was funny. Another timeout.
Back upstairs we went, and back downstairs James went for a THIRD time. It just got too quiet. I went downstairs and immediately looked at the dogbowls, he wasn't there.. but neither was one of the bowls. I caught him carrying the bowl through the living room snacking out of it like it was a tub of popcorn! Down went the bowl, and into timeout went James. We had another talk during timeout, and I asked, "James, why are you in time out?". He replied, "dogfood". So HE KNOWS why, and that it's bad... what gives?
Apparently, three times is not the charm, but four is. I should put him on a leash. The fourth time I caught him at the bowls again, he had started the migration of dry food into the water bowl, but as soon as he saw me, he started grabbing it back out and singing, "clean up! clean up! I love clean up!". Nice try, buddy, but too little, too late! A fourth time out seemed to hit home, although it may also be that I offered him a snack after that.
So, maybe he really was hungry, but DOG FOOD?? It CAN'T be that good!

Motherly Musings

Wow, I just can't believe sometimes what a sweet little boy we're raising. Our bedtime routine now is that he goes down a little later since he's moved to the BBB (around 8:30pm), and Mommy or Daddy lays down with him for about 5-15 mins to complete the winddown, tell a story, whatever. Just bedtime snuggles. So Mommy was with him tonight, and I normally stroke his hair and face, and rub his little shoulders to quiet him down while I either sing, or chat, or tell a story. He loves having company during this time, and when you first go in with him, he always pats the pillow beside his head and says hopefully, "night night?", hoping you'll join him! So I'm laying beside him, and he reaches out and starts rubbing my shoulder and cheek, saying, "niiice, niice", and just grinning the cutest little cheesy grin. It's amazing how much he imitates us, and when he does sweet stuff like that, I have hope that we're raising a sweet little guy who won't be afraid to demonstrate his affection for everyone he loves. Future Wife, if you ever read this, you're welcome! ;-)

The continued adventures in (not!) sleeping, and other stuff, too

(not!) sleeping, continued:
Ah, the saga continues unabated. Last night James wandered in again. It's actually kinda funny the way he does this, because he's awake enough that his O.C. kicks in and he makes it a point to close his door before coming into our room. He then sorta shuffles in, since it's now dark. He then just starts to help himself into bed. Daddy said, "no, James, go to bed now!". So James shuffles back to his room, closes the door, and proceeds to stand behind it and sob his little heart out... "mommaaaa, mommaaaa, momaaa" over and over at about 3am. When this didn't work, he moved back to our doorway where he whimpered in the saddest little voice possible, "mommy? mommy?". Again, we're at that "we feel sorrier for ourselves than we do for you, so too bad" stage. He eventually went back to bed. Ahh...sleep... I miss you so!

.. and other stuff, too.
I joined the boys for their bi-weekly ride to the double-R. GRACIOUS, James was PAIN! I don't know if it was compounded by the mommy factor (it was) or if he's always that bad (sometimes), but CRIMINEY! About halfway there, he started saying "mommy? mommy... OUT! All Done!". He is reverting back to the point where he does NOT like to sit in his carseat for very long. This is intensified by the fact that we're trying to work him off of the paci except for naps and nighttime (yes, parents.. breathe a sigh of relief! I know it's been vexing you to NO END that our child still uses one!). So, the ride there AND home, both rotten as 2-wk old tomatoes. And you can only ride facing backwards for so long before you get a neck crick and a wicked case of carsickness!

On more positive (less fussy) fronts, James is using more and more sentences. If he tries to tell you something and you guess incorrectly what it is that he's saying, he replies, "no no, momma, blah", where "blah" is what he was trying to say in the first place that I clearly didnt get! He's a funny little man.

Big Boy Bed Status Update

So how's the big boy bed going, you ask? Well, not too bad, although I'm VERY excited about catching up on some sleep over the 3 day weekend (I hope!!!).

The first few nights were rough, man! Night #1, mommy spent more than half of the night in there with him. Night #2, mommy still spent a few pre-dawn hours, but he made it most of the night by himself, with a few wake-ups. You know how you always think more clearly during the day? Well, I realized that I wasnt' doing either of us any favors, and needed to revert back to my cry-it-out mentality. Not making him cry, but rather, remembering that this is a healthy step towards growing up, and he needs to learn some indepedence here, and coddling him isn't helping, even though it's easier!
So, night #3 we started off with a little pre-bed peptalk. "Who's bed is this?". "James". "That's right, this is James' bed, and James sleeps here. It's a NICE bed! Mommy sleeps in mommy's bed, James sleeps in James' bed, ok?". "OK". We repeated this little chat each time he woke up, and he spent all of night #3 in bed by himself.

That's been pretty much the routine ever since. There's typically at least 1 nocturnal visit from James, either sobbing about something he's misplaced, or just climbing on up into bed. Either results in one of us quickly re-depositing him back into his room. We also had a brief streak of requests during these visits for Mommy to "rock? rock?" Haven't had these in the last two nights, though, so perhaps we're getting over the hump!

So, it's going as well as could be expected, I suppose, and other moms say it took them about 2 weeks to get into a groove, so we've got a few days yet. Here's to an uneventful and sleepy weeked! Happy Memorial Day!

Egg-zactly what was it you needed...?

Those of you who are frequent visitors to our site are probably familiar now with James' propensity for taking strange things to bed with him. Well, not so much strange, I guess, as just varied. He also likes things to be in certain places. His regular guests are Saturn, Big SpongeBob, leetle SpongeBob, and of course, Lion (aka, "grrrr"). Sometimes he also likes to take a ball, little rocket, or something else random to bed with him if he's attached himself to it that day. Well, last night he insisted on taking a small plastic Easter egg to sleep with him (seriously... a freakin' yellow plastic egg.. the kind that snaps apart so you can put candy and crap inside... TO BED!). Whatever, we tucked him and his egg into bed and went to sleep.
Well, about 2am, he walks into our room (as he now does EVERY night around this time) sobbing, "egg?!?! egg?!?!" and insisted on an escort BACK to his room to help find his egg so that he could go back to sleep with it. THAT is why we were awakened at TWO A.M!!! So, he and egg got tucked back in and we all went back to sleep.
... until about 6am, which is when he typically wakes up and now helps himself into our bed. Daddy got a biff upside the head with Saturn, followed by a James crawling up between us to snuggle for a little while longer. *sigh*.

*btw, "Saturn" is actually a pillow about the size of a basketball, shaped like Saturn. Found it at Wal-mart and it's quite cool! James LOOOOVES it!

TUMbuhhhlls!

James has discovered how to tumble, aka somersault. He's so cute when he does it, and has pretty good form! When he goofs up and rolls off to the side instead of straight over, he says, "no good!" and tries again! So silly!

Bouncin' on my Big Boy Bed

Well, last night James graduated to his Big Boy Bed. What an absolute nut! He'd already had a busy day in the Rapids, and when he got home, Sterling and I started to get the bed setup. I'd already dissembled the crib before they got home, and it was a little after 8pm when we started (his normal bedtime!). No actual bed frame, just the mattress and boxspring on the floor.. not as far to fall. Well, you'd have thought we pitched a tent and brought the circus into his room! Apparently, his own bed is the coolest thing in the entire world! I went ahead and hung the Solar System painting I've been working on, too, and it was enough to almost make him explode!

Bedtime? Not so good...

We told him night night, tucked him in, and left the room. A few minutes later, we heard little feet, and the door crack open. He said, "all done!" and wandered into our room. This happened at LEAST a half dozen times. One time, he actually hurled his paci back onto the bed, brushed his hands together as if to say, "that's THAT!", and then said, "all done". What a mess he is! We let him lay with us on our bed for a little while so that we could watch TV, but then decided we'd just go in with him and keep him company for a bit until he wound down. So, we all laid down in his bed and just hung out for a bit. He started to get sleepy, but then he'd roll over to look at one of us, nose to nose, grin, and say, "hi.". Then he started playing with my hair (?!) and it was just so silly to me that I started to crack up (I really tried not to.. it's like when you have to laugh in church or a meeting, or somewhere you're supposed to be quiet!). We finally settled him down and left the room. We went back into our room, and we heard the ominous creak of a matress again, and Sterling said, "James Sterling Woodruff... get back in bed!"...this was followed by little feet, the matress noise again, and..... silence!

At some point (around 2am) we heard a big ol' thunk and a cry, but Daddy soothed him right back to sleep, and he woke up in an awesome mood. Big Boy Bed Night #1 = semi-successful.

A random note, just because I think I've forgotten to post this before.. James says "blue" like this: "blulublublublulblulblu". It was especially funny one night when he woke up and desperately wanted his blue paci, which had fallen on the floor. I walked in to him sobbing, and he looked at me and said, "Waaahahahahablulublublulublublu". It's hard to be pitiful when you're making noises like that!

Tooth Trouble Times Two

Ah, teething! Just when you think you're past it.. BAM! Two-year molars! James' are on the way (bottom ones are poking through) and he is craaaaabby. We are back to not-so-sleepy nights, with some intermittant awakenings. Since they actually burst through, it's not been *as* bad, but he does get up a little earlier than normal, and is a bit of a grump... which means so are we! Send happy tooth thoughts our way!

Look! He IS mine!

Wow, I've found photographic evidence that seems to support that James might actually be my child! If you'll recall, I didn't actually SEE him come out of me, and typically he looks alot more like a Woodruff than a Cooley... but here, it looks like he could actually be mine!

UPDATE: OMG! He has my chin and cheeks! I didn't notice that until I really went back and stared at this! *sigh!*

We will drink no wine before its time...

hahahahah.. who are we kidding! We love it, we drink it, we dish about it! Karey and I took a girls trip to wine country this weekend (there were two other ladies who dropped out... you know who you are, and it's totally your loss!). It totally inspired me to setup a third blog just for chatting about our trip, and future trips (oh yes, there will be more!). Click on "Woodruff Wine Blog" for more details, and enjoy!

New bios

New bios posted.. click on "Click here for Woodruff Bios, Natal News archives and current Vital Statistics"

No cheeks!

Typically when I get a smooch from James, I get 3 in a row: one on each cheek, and one on the lips (and we count each one.. 1 - 2 - 3!). As I held him yesterday and asked for a quick smooch, I realized how drooly he was, and that I really didn't want one on the lips! So, I let him kiss my cheek, and then he went in for another so I offered my cheek again. He went in for another and another, and finally he made his little angry noise and said "no!" and pointed to my mouth! He had to get that last kiss on the lips to seal the deal!
So now I think it's funny and have started to mess with him and only offer my cheek. He's wise to me though, and right after cheek kiss #1, he grabs my face and turns me so that he can get that wet drooly kiss right on the smacker!

The Ghost Whisperer

On more than one occassion we've thought that James was channelling Moose, and our little furry friend was still with us in spirit. Today I think we've confirmed it. Moose used to move things around (before, not now..that would be creepy), like the time we found one of our shoes on the windowsill. Nice and neat, not chewed on, just moved and placed somewhere else. Today, we found three little binder clips lined up on the window sill. I guess it just seemed like a good place for them. Let us know if James can pass any messages to Moose for you... we've asked him to pass along our love!

Couple a hayseeds...

James and Sterling picked up a bale of hay for the backyard, and thought they were being cute (they were!)...

Another fun (and busy) day at the park

Another fun day at the Museum of Art park. We spend 2 hrs walking around (James mainly ran) and had a blast, as always. Fun pics in the Photo Collection (Look in "Spring 2006").

Fair warning

When picking up James from daycare today, Valarie shared a little anecdote from the day. When James is about to.. uh.. void.. he lets you know by making the worst face in the world. It looks like a worried grimace / grin. Valarie said he was standing holding onto the coffee table today making "the face" when he looked up at her and said, "here it comes!". She said it cracked her up, and when she told me I asked, "are you kidding me?!?! how embarassing!". I thought perhaps she'd heard him incorrectly, so I asked him to say it, and sure enough, it came out plain as day! I laughed all the way home!

Hats, Dogs, and Sneezes

Hats
Every week, the first day that Sterling goes back to work for the week, instead of sleeping during the day, he just sleeps in as long as he can and gets up around noon. This means that once a week, the daycare shuttle is reversed, and I drop off, he picks up. Today was that day, and mommy's hair looked ROUGH this morning. .. so I wore a hat. James saw this hat, and immediately demanded his own! He pointed to HIS head and said, "hat! hat!", so I had to run upstairs and grab his, lest he wake up daddy!

Dogs
Then, while eating breakfast, he dropped a piece of food. He immediately pointed to it and said, "get it, Becky!". They really do learn by example!
We also walked Becky in the yard this morning, and got a visit from Murphy (Jennie's dog, across the street). James loves Murphy, and said hi to him and gave him lots of pats. Then we went to go back inside, and James said, "come on, Murphy!". I had to explain to him that Murphy lived across the street, not at our house. He pointed to Jennie's house and said, "Murphy's house!". Smarty, that one!

Sneezes
So, we get to Valarie's, and walk down to the bus stop and James has to sneeze. If you've ever seen him do this, you know this typically means 3 sneezes in a row. We always have a good, silly laugh about this, and this is followed by fake sneezes which generate more giggles. Well, the kids as the bus stop saw this, and thought it was hilarious. Within seconds, he had half a dozen elementary school kids around him in a circle, and he was entertaining them like a stand-up comedian! No confidence issues, there!

Cutie Pie

Posted just because this is so darned cute. We were playing in the driveway this weekend, and James picked me a flower. I tucked it behind my ear. Then he picked one for himself and wanted to wear one like mommy! Sterling thinks he looks girly, I just think he's my cutie...

YouOK?

This is James' latest saying. When I thought about it, I realized that I ask him this question probably a few times every hour. When we're driving somewhere, if he's been quiet for a few mins, I ask "are you ok?", when I hear a bump or a whine that's not immediately followed by wailing, I ask, "are you ok?". So earlier today, when he wasn't sure if he was done with lunch or not, and threw a mini-fit (ie: VERY fake crying), mommy imitated him to show him how silly he looked, and he immediately stopped, looked at me and asked, "Are you ok?". I guess my reaction to this showed him just how funny of a question that was, because he's been asking it all day. As we drove down the road to get a haircut, he asked, "yaokay? Yaokay? Momma, MAMA! yaokay?" until I responded, "Yes, James, I'm ok. thank you for asking". He responded with a polite little, "yawuhcome!", and that was the end of that round!
He also got a haircut that was sorely overdue, and I captured the process on camera for the first time. He's a GREAT little haircut customer. He just sits there and watches, and every now and then he giggles when "it tickews!" He got lots of compliments from the ladies for being so darned cute, polite, and well-behaved. What a doll!
Check out Spring 2006 in the Photo Collection for pics of the haircut!

Toddler Times Two

Tonight we watched Keaton so that Stacy and Ben could go out to dinner sans son for the FIRST TIME SINCE HIS BIRTH (can you STAND it!?). Just knowing that made me even more appreciative (not sure I could have been) of our parents' proximaty and willingness to watch the boy on a whim! Anyhoo, those two little rugrats had a BLAST! Of course, they always do, but it was just a funny as ever. They played in the "fort", drew, watched Steve Irwin (CRIKEY! Shaaahks! Keaton's favorite new water-bound animal) and ran around like crack monkeys. We got some pretty funny pics, they're in Spring 2006 in the Photo Collection. There's no substitute for being there, but the pics are close runner up. Maybe someday we'll splurge on a new camera that can take VIDEOS!

CloppCloppClopp

James loves "Mr Brown Can Moo" by Dr. Suess. He can make all of the animal noises, as well as some extras. He seems to be quite taken with animals of all kinds lately, and tonight we watched Animal Planet, which just sucked him in! They showed elephants drinking in a river, and he went from snuggling quietly to up on all fours, "drinking" like an elephant. He moved his head up and down and made slurping noises. Sterling and I nearly fell off the bed laughing! So far he's only pretended to be a doggy (crawls around on all fours and likes to get patted on the head), but now we've added elephant to the repetoire!

Down the drain

Recently, James has become fascinated with the water going down the drain in the tub. I thought most kids were afraid of this, but he will lie there on his tummy the entire time the tub is draining (and a few mins after, if I let him), and watch in awe. He likes to wait for the little "tornado" to form and then he tries, unsuccessfully of course, to grab it. When it's all gone he looks down the hole and says, "all gone, water!". Then he stands up, acts like he's in the middle of an arctic tundra, and squeels and fake shivers until I bundle him up in a towel. From scientist to silly in 1.2 seconds.

Caveman Toddler

James remain neutral about his feelings towards utensils. There are some occassions in which he acknowledges the need, such as a spoon for cereal. Finger-able food, however, makes forks unneccessary. Tonight he refused to use his to eat his macaroni and cheese. We tried to cajole him, "James, watch Daddy use his fork! Mmmm.. I LOVE my fork!", but to no avail. If you speared a few noodles (yeah, I called 'em noodles.. deal with it, Dave!), he'd accept it, eat them off of the fork, and then put the fork back down and continue two-handing the remaining noodles into his mouth one-by-one. I finally got him to hold the fork, but then he just used the one free hand to shove noodles into his mouth. At one point Sterling said, "look, James, Mommy and Daddy don't eat like animals.". Nothing doing, though...I guess you have to pick your battles.

Happy Easter!

Well, this year James was old enough to kinda "get" Easter. We've been honing our egg-hunting skills for a few weeks now, and he's an old pro!

Karey and Dave hosted a lovely Easter lunch/dinner for a small handful of friends, and it was just perfect. AWESOME food (Karey has clearly been enjoying some kitchen puttering), good company, an no real schedule.. just a relaxing afternoon. We did hide some eggs for James, who thoroughly enjoyed finding them. It didn't hurt one bit that Karey filled them with mini Teddy Grahams! James loved hanging out with his buddy Dave (c'mon, Dase!), and wore us all down to a nub! Parents of 10-mth-old Ryan, Ken and Susan, thought that James had just had alot of sugar... we educated them that, no... he REALLY IS just THAT busy! Their little one isn't sleeping thru the night yet (yikes! I would DIE), but he's also very mello. We all agreed that life just kinda balances out.. James sleeps through the night, but there's a very good reason for it! Either you pay at night or during the day, but everyone pays! LOL.

One of the fun little treats that Karey made were these egg/cookie things. Apparently Dave's mom makes them, and Karey thought they were cool. Think of a "support our troops" ribbon like you see on the back of cars.. the little loop at the top with the two tails at the bottom. The cookies were like that, with a dyed hard-boiled egg in the loop, and the whole thing was drizzled w/ icing. They were super yummy, but you really couldn't eat the egg. Dave said, "yes, it's a long-standing family tradition in my house to waste an entire case of eggs at Easter!".

Thanks, Kagey and Guff! We had an awesome time!

A message from the great beyond..

I'm blogging from beyond the grave.. at least that's how I feel. MY WORD! I think the boy's finally done me in this time. This morning James and I went to the Museum of Art (one of our favorite weekend jaunts) to check out some new art that they'd added to the greenway trail. James' favorite, btw, is "Trail Heads".. in the pics above, it's the thing that looks like a huge pile of sticks. It's actually branches woven around live trees to form a bent twig sculpture which looks like big heads looking over the trail. The "bodies" form tunnels, sort of like an on-the-ground treehouse.. it's VERY cool. We also saw the new "Crossroads" sculpture, which James thought looked like a rocket! We walked down (and UP) the trail and finally made it to the pedestrian bridge over I-40, which James LOVED.. we watched cars go under, and every now and again someone would honk at him. On the way back, we discovered a much shorter-cut from Trail Heads to the ped. bridge which would have saved us alot of walking.. dang. Anyhoo, we were out there for about 2 hrs. Whew!
So then we went to Bear Rock for lunch (mmmmm) and home for a nap. Shockingly, he actually napped for less than 2 hrs.. seriously, I was stunned! We then went to Pullen Park to say hi to Uncle Mark, ride the carousel, and the choo choo. Then we decided it was VERY hot, and we left to find something to do in air conditioning... that something, as always, was Target. On the way over, James went through two cups of water, for which I was thankful because he was looking a little red in the face. While pushing around Target, James said, "mama, poops".. thinking he had a dirty diaper, I picked him up to check his pants... and saw that they and the cart seat were soaked! Clearly, the rehydration effort on the way over was successful.. perhaps too much! So, we paid, we left, we changed.
The little butterbean's in bed, Mommy's finished blogging, and a wonderful day comes to a close...

Big shoes to fill...

At least this time he's trying on Sterling's shoes, not mommy's..

Dining al fresco

Ok, seriously, how cute are these boys? Daddy thought it would be cool to have a little picnic-esque lunch out-of-doors. Nice Daddy.

Time for a little smackerel of something

Upon waking from his nap and deciding that he was hungry, James ran/toddled down the hall towards the stairs wailing, "ceereal! ceereal! ceeeeeeereaaaaaaAAAALL?!?!?!", and then proceeded to sob when told, "no, not right now". Hm.. I get that way over chocolate, but cereal???

Field Trip

A fit of allergies and a busy weekend made for Monday Dred. So, since my calendar was pretty clear anyway, I opted to take a vacation day to hang out with my peeps. We checked the website first (this time!) and decided that it was a beautiful day to go to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. The weather ROCKED and so did our trip! Although we initially balked at the price of admission, we soon agreed that it was worth it. There's the weather center, with a mini-tornado that you can watch form, and then reach out a touch. There's a basin full of clouds that you can play in, and a bunch of other cool climate/weather-related stuff. Then there's SPACE.. James got to climb into a command module, dock the shuttle with an orbiting satellite, and see lots of EARTHS! Little Science is an area specifically geared towards the little ones, and we spent quite some time there. In the pics, it's the area where it looks like James is in a treehouse. But WAIT.. that's not all! In addition to the inside stuff, there's a friggin' complex on the outside. There's a very cool playground, a farmyard, a munchie pavillion (just vending machines right now.. soon to be an actual snackbar, I think), and the Butterfly Pavillion. There's a train around there somewhere, too, but we just didn't have time and didn't find it. I cannot tell you how tired we were when we left here, and much like Biltmore, you'd really need a FULL day to see and appreciate the whole museum. Fortunately, it's closer and cheaper than Biltmore, and you can climb on stuff here. Check out the new album in the photo collection, and take a trip yourself sometime soon! I think James had a good time.

A little sprinkle'l do ya

So today we had Ben and Stacy's baby sprinkle. A "sprinkle", for those of you not in the know (like me, before it was explained) is when you sprinkle the expectant parents with little necessities vs. showering with bigger "first baby" stuff. Things like diapers, wipes, lotions, etc. So the shower was a success.. good food, guys didn't get estrogen overload, and everyone seems to have had a good time. My two favorite quotes of the evening (both from expectant dad, Ben) were during gift opening:

• When opening a big box of 400 wipes, "wow, can you believe they fit 400 of these in this box? I'd forgotten how small these are! Now you get about 30 in a box this big!"... I said, "Ben, those are WIPES, not diapers".
• Stacy received a gift certificate to get a picture of her pg tummy.. a belly shot. It was clear that Ben had been carrying on a different conversation because when she said, "honey, have you ever seen belly shots?", he replied, "uh.. maybe in college?".

A good time for good friends who are about to welcome an awesome little bundle into their lives!

There's a frog in my throat

Valarie said that yesterday James was eating lunch when he let out a big ol' belch, and then just started laughing hysterically. She said they were big hearty laughs, and he went on for about a minute. At first she thought, oh my... he thinks burps are funny. But then when he finished his giggle fit and caught his breath, he said, "that tickles!"

When he takes a bath, we use a little sprinker can to rinse off, and tonight while he was getting his bath, I used it to rinse his back. He did the same thing.. giggled like a schoolgirl and said "it tickles!". I should also point out that when we're rinsing more... er.. critical areas.. he does the same thing... giggles and squirms like a nut. That's not funny, though, so much as just wierd.

Beware what you wish for

So many mornings when James woke us up between 5-6am we asked, "why won't he sleep later??". We brought him back to bed with us to get him to sleep for another hour or so, and hopefully ourselves as well (although it typically wasn't good sleep, because the boy will NOT hold still). Wish granted... he now lazes around in bed, arising between 7-8am (closer to 8 with this week's time change). But now I miss those morning snuggles. I wake up before him, and although I'm grateful for the extra few minutes to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, walk the dog...I'm also sad because when my little boy does wake up, he's ready to go. He's not interested in an extra snuggle. In fact, if we do bring him back to bed with us, he'll lay there for about 2 minutes, then start begging for "ceeerreeeal!!!" (his favorite food in the world) and trying to get down. Be careful what you wish for.. you may have to pay for it with a lack of snuggles.

On a completely unrelated topic, James continues to get better and better at amusing himself, which is rather nice. Last night, we both laid down on the bed together and read our own books.. here's James "reading" his SpongeBob coloring book.

We're TWINS!

Well, we visited Grandma Sis and Samantha this weekend. What a blast those kids had! Samantha is just too funny these days. She came over with her hair in a ponytail and I said, "wow, Samantha, your hair looks really cute!", to which she replied, "it sure does". She and James played with the contents of her Easter basket, blew bubbles, rode around in the wagon (with me pulling, of course), hung out in front of the house because the weather was AWESOME, and just had a good time. Samantha's new thing is that if two people have any matching traits, then they're TWINS! She and James were both wearing green, so they're TWINS! She and I both had the same .. I dunno, something, so we were tWINS! How silly.

Also, James' new thing is calling out to you prefaced by an "oh", as in, "ooooh, Daaadaaa?" in this little sing songy voice. It's a hoot. Then if he can't find the sought-after person, he asks, "is he hiding? where is he?". he has sucha personality.

On the MOVE

This morning I was snuggling w/ James in bed when he started to squirm a little. I said "do you want to get up?", and he shook his head. So I asked, "do you want to snuggle?", and he replied, "snuggle.". So I leaned over to give him a quick smooch and put my head next to his on the pillow. He reached his little hand over, placed it on my cheek, and pushed... "move.".

Also, James has learned to get out of his crib, as long as the side is down. It's pretty clever, really. He kinda does a push-up, and then backs one leg over the rail at a time so that he's sortof doing a plank position with hs feet over the side, then he backs up until he can let himself drop. We've begun to revisit the topic of upgrading to the big boy bed!

Oh yes, and Happy Birthday Mom!

Cheers, chums!

We switched up the ol' Beer Wed routine and threw the gauntlet to the Kleys to chose tonight's theme. We went with Fish 'n' Chips, and it was bloody brilliant! Jolly good choice, Kleys, cheers to you!

Quirky little man

Our little fella is just so funny and quirkly. He really does have a great sense of humor and a real sense of funny / silliness. Several funnies from recent days...

Honey Socks:
Honey gave James 2 pairs of red socks for Valentine's Day. For whatever reason, we started referring to them as his Honey Socks. The other day I was trying to get him dressed for daycare, and initially picked out his Honey Socks, because I was going to dress him in a red shirt. Well, we decided against the red shirt, so I switched socks. As soon as he saw the non-HS on his feet, he threw a fit and told me "HONEY SOCKS!! HONEY SOCKS!!!"... basically demanding that I switch back! I took off the offensive socks, and replaced them with his beloved Honey Socks, to which he responded reverently with a little smirk, "Honey Sooocks..."

Nooooo!
We have a silly little game we play, where I ask him a silly question, to which he knows the answer is "no", and he'll reply in a silly voice, "NNoooooo!". Like, "does a doggy say 'meow'?", and he'll say "noooo!" and we'll do this until I get to the right answer.
Yesterday he came home with a little toy truck. I wasn't sure where it came from, and figured it must belong to one of his daycare buddies and it got sent home with us by mistake. I said "whose truck is this? is it Cole's?", and he said, "NOOoooo!", I asked, "Is it Nick's?", and he said, "Nooooo!", and I said, "well, whose is it?", and he said, "Abbie". I thought, that was weird, but maybe it is hers.
I asked Val this morning, she said sure enough, Abbie gave it to him yesterday. How funny.. technically he told me about his day!

The color Mommy
Those of you who know me know that I've taken to wearing several orange articles of clothing recently. It's fallish / wintery,and I just like it. I have about 3 different orange shirts, and at least 1 or 2 make it into the weekly wardrobe roundup. Well, I guess it's pretty frequent, because James now associates this color with me. If he sees another woman wearing orange, he points to her and says, "Momma". If you point to anything orange and ask him what color it is (he correctly names all other colors, btw), he says, "momma"... so I'm officially a color now.

Asheville pics posted

I posted the pics from our trip to Asheville.. check out the photo collection!

Asheville, Day 2

What a day! We are totally pooped. We started the day off with breakfast at the hotel (not too shabby, kudos to you, Hampton Inn), and headed out around 10ish. We figured we'd spend an hour or so at the Biltmore, check out downtown, and then head back for our wine stuff. Well! It took us TWO HOURS to make it through the house. It was very cool, though. The package we bought included the audio tour. Sterling thought we looked like huge touristy dorks with our little headsets and cell phone-looking thingies hanging around our necks, but we're both glad we did it.. it really enhanced the tour. When you get to the banquet hall, there are about 4 little "extra / bonus" tracks you can listen to with details of meals and celebrations. One of them talks about what they'd eat there. Sterling had his play a few seconds after me, and I was listening to a guy re-enacting what a chef would have served... he described how he loved to serve brains! "I just love brains, I love them in everything! I love brains in puff pastry..." blah blah. I looked at Sterling, who was just listening and wondering why I had a funny look on face.. all of a sudden he got the same look..blech! We toured 4 floors and the basement, and were eventually disgorged (like a champagne cork.. read more) by the courtyard which has been turned into a little mini-mall.
We had lunch at the Stable Cafe, which used to be... uh..the stable! Very cool, very YUM, not cheap. But then, nothing is... they know a captive audience when they see one!
We got to check out the gardens a little bit before we had to hop on the shuttle back to the parking lot and jet over to the Winery. We ran into the main entrance along with another couple who was also running late.. glad it wasn't just us! They turned out to be really nice, and we chatted with them quite a bit during this and the later tour.
Before I go any further, let me point out that there are 3 tours / sessions you can sign up for for no additional fee... you get even more to drink, and they're just really great.. you cannot miss, I would highly recommend these!
We took the behind-the-scenes tour that showed us where/how the crush the grapes, how they ferment, where they store the barrels, bottle, and how they make champagne. Sterling said it looks like alot like the brewery, just with different bottles. If you've never seen how champagne is made, you need to. You will never complain about the price again.. holy CRAP it's a labor-intensive process!
Since we had an hour to kill before the next session, we NATURALLY spent some of it in the tasting room (again) to round out with the ones we couldn't taste yesterday (you only get 5 after you try the 4 they push on ya!), and then we moved on to try the high end wines for a small fee. Actually, at $7 for 3 samples (all of which were nearly full-sized portions), I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth! Especially considering that one of the wines I tried costs about $50 / bottle.. soooooo goood, though!
While chatting with the other fun little couple we met, we discovered that they are from, well, kinda all over. They're staying in TN at one of their parents' timeshare. We mentioned yesterday's smoke to them, and they said "OH! What was that?". He'd told her maybe that's why they called it the Smoky Mountains, because it looked smokey up there (LOL!), and she said, "Uh, Yeah, but it SMELLS smokey, too!". We all chuckled over that one! They'd also signed up for the red wine / chocolate session, and we made a pact that if either couple was late, the other would cover for them! Sure enough, we were the ones who were late (we took a potty break, and the lady at the desk TOLD us they'd wait for us!).
So, the RWC session took us down to the cellar again, to the party room. Apparently, if you have $5K you're willing to part with, you can rent this out for parties. It's basically just a cool room down in the basement where the guy (who was pretty darn funny!) serves you two red wines and some yummy chocolate, and explains why they pair well together, throws in s'more very good little wine tidbits, and you get to see how well RW and C go together (I already knew that they rocked). What I didn't know was that certain percentages of chocolate go better with some red wines than others.. there are optimal pairings. We had a 58% cocoa chocolate which was best-suited for the Reserve Merlot.. the other wine we tried, the Cardinal's Crest, would be better suited for a 55% chocolate.
We strolled over to the farm, looked it over, and then headed out for some grub. The Grove Arcade, sort of an indoor marketplace (think Post Office Pavillion or Union Station in D. C.) to find some food, forgetting that it was 6pm on a Sunday.. el closed-o. So we settled for.. are you ready? KRYSTAL! That's right... we ate Krystal burgers in the car on the way back to the hotel. Dave, you should know that they server something called a "Steamer Sack", which is basically a bag of 24 burgers... Steamers. Nothing tops off a day of culture, wine and history like eating something called a steamer.

Awesome Asheville

What a beautiful day! We woke up this morning to the soothing strains of our son's wailing (nothing new). Daddy went in to say hi, and James immediately demanded "momma!". Well, momma came in, and then he demanded Grandaddy.. and didn't give a hoot about momma. We got ready, and hit the road around 9ish.
Our first stop was at Ray-Len vineyards to sample their wares. Yum! Awesome wine, super-nice people, beautiful vineyard, and they make furniture out of their old wine barrels that's bee-ay-ootiful. We may have to pick something up.
We then headed onto Asheville, and arrived around 3ish. We checked in, and decided to check out Biltmore. The house was closed for the day, but the winery was still open. The line moved pretty quickly, there was a 6 min video, and then it was a self-guided tour of the winery itself. At the end was a HEE-YOOGE tasting room, where we could sample like 3 or 4 of the wines they chose, then 5 more of our choosing. Needless to say, we've sampled ALOT of wine today. We're chatting it over tonight to figure out what we want to buy when we go back.
Dinner was at a cool little place in downtown Asheville called Barley's Taproom and Grill. We had some very good beer, and some rockin' pizza! We're now stuffed to the gills, pooped, and chilling in the hotel room.
A tip: the package deal we booked through the Biltmore website included 2 nights at the hotel and admittance to the Biltmore estate for the duration of our stay.. 3 days. When you consider how much wine they let you sample, and how much it normally costs just for 1 day, it's a total steal! Thus far, we recommend it highly! Bonus: Hampton Inn has hot chocolate and cookies at night!
Loves to everyone, and thanks to Honey and Grandaddy for watching the boy (man are YOU going to be pooped after this weekend!)
I should also mention that after we got here (when we drove back over to Biltmore), we noticed that it looked very hazy and we smelled smoke. When we tried to come here 5 yrs or so ago, we got snowed out (a very long story, but basically we stayed overnight then fled the next morning to avoid being snowbound), and all we could think when we saw the smoke was "crap.. NOW the place is on FIRE!". Turns out they were doing a controlled burn in TN in the woods.. the smoke just travelled quite a bit. Whew!

Thank heaven for little boys.. but I miss my baby

I took a half day today to ease myself into our vacation weekend.. we're going to Biltmore Estate! Anyway, I took advantage of the free time to clean up James' room a bit, and put away some of his baby things in preparation for the ongoing migration to Big Boy Room. As I got to his drawers to see what could be weeded out, I realized that we still had all of his receiving blankets and little baby blankets in there. They're so small! I held them for a minute and remembered how tiny he was, and how much I loved to snuggle up with him before he ran everywhere at a mile a minute! I realized that in my excitement surrounding the emergence of Little Boy, I'd nearly forgotten that this meant the departure of Baby Boy. And no, before you ask, it doesn't get me thinking about another one.. it just makes me nostalgic for the one I have/had. I'm sure that more experienced moms are already hip to this feeling... it made me a little sad.

More pics!

Thanks to Keaton's Mommy and Daddy, Stacy and Ben Kley, for providing more awesome pics of James' birthday! They've been added to the collection. Check out the "2nd Birthday" album..enjoy!

The icing on the cake

What a wonderful party we had! We talked about it for hours afterwards, and just couldn't get over what a great turnout we had, and how happy we got to see so many people we don't get to see as often as we'd like! We had nearly 20 grown-ups, and about 7 kids in and around our house AT ONE TIME! We now accept that our house is simply NOT designed for parties. You'll see in the pictures that at one point, I just blew up a bunch of balloons for the kids to toss around.. 7 kids doesn't *sound* like a lot, but when they are bouncing off of the walls and one another while throwing around balloons, it's like having 100 kids! It was so funny to watch, though, and strangely enough, it wasn't stressful or anything, just crazy and fun. Kudos to mah main, Sterling, for his mad cooking skillz! Nicely done on the burgers and dogs, and the cole slaw was gone before you could say "hot dog!". In spite of the fact that it was his first time cooking and army-sized batch of mac and cheese, it too, was a success.
James received so many nice things from such thoughtful friends, and we spent several hours last night taking things out of the packages, and I'm sure we'll be doing some assembly for the next few days! I prefer to think of it as a trial run for Christmas this year! Everyone seemed to LOVE their goody bags, and the squishy water tubes were the hit of the party (as I predicted!).
Everyone said they had a wonderful time. Jamye said she actually hopped online this morning to catch the post here (so flattering!). Dave said he'd been looking forward to it all week, and was not disappointed. All in all, a wonderfully exhausting but super-fun and successful birthday party! Here's to another year!

Oh yeah... new pics in the Photo Collection, but we're depending on the kindness of others who will hope will share theirs.. we were a little too busy to snap a bunch ourselves! Ta ta!

So proud and so..uh....hmmm...

So James came to me for the first time this morning and said "Momma, poops", letting me know that he had a dirty diaper! Wow... what a HUGE breakthrough. This is a boy you normally only know needs to be changed when it hits you in the face (specifically, the nose). He does not care one bit about carrying around a little extra weight, and he will run away from you if you ask him if he needs to be changed. So for him to TELL me and let me change him is HUGE! So proud, and I told him this.
So, with my proud-momma-high lingering, we headed out to face the day. It was BEAUTIFUL.. sunny skies, slight breeze, 70s.. the kind of day that puts you in a good mood. Mind you, as this story unfolds, the day never really gets bad, it's just funny.
We're walking through Target (wow.. ever notice how many of my entries are set in this scene.. I think I've got a problem), James is in the cart and we're looking at toddler clothes. I step over one rack and he says "momma! momma!", I walk back over and say "yes?" and he says "pee pee!!!", and I realize that his hand is crammed down his pants all the way up to his elbow. For any of you thinking, "oh, another breakthrough.. now he's telling you he's wet", you're wrong. He was telling me that he'd found his little buddy and was having a blast. Niiiiiice. Mommy tried the ol' "pee pee's going night night right now.. take your hand out of your pants and tell pee pee night night"... he did, but then he'd look at me, wait to catch my eye, grin, and start to hitch up his shirt and head his hand down south again. I guess I gave it away... I let him know that I didnt' want him to do that instead of playing it cool, all "aw, it's all cool.. play with it if you want, Mommy doesnt' care"... reverse psychology only works if you don't cave and meet the behavior with a "What the heck are you doing in PUBLIC!?" kind of face. Dang.

Hunh?

Sometimes (ok, often) toddlers do and say things that just make you go "hunh? what?" and you just wonder what's going through their busy, silly little minds. This morning, James opened up the top drawer of our bedside table, sniffed, and said "smells good!". What?!?!

Happy 2nd Birthday

Happy Birthday to my favorite little man! I can't believe how much he's grown in the last two years... or that's it's BEEN TWO YEARS! Holy cow! James, when you read this years from now, know that we just think you are so funny, smart, sweet, personable, and all-around awesome. You are loved by many, especially your mommy and daddy. I watched you walk down to the bustop today, holding Natalie's hand as you just looked at me and said "bye bye!" and I realized just how big you're getting. It blows my mind, and it makes me a little sad, but kinda proud, too... we must be doing something right for you to be as great as you are. We love you, buddy!

Spirits help us!

So I'm taking a 5 min breather because James is downstairs screaming his head off and it's really hard to concentrate. It seems he's been especially prone to grouchy periods lately.. we're not sure if it's the onset of the twoseys or just a rough patch of crank. At any rate, I went to check the ParentsPlace March 2004 babies chat board to see if this was normal and found this quiz: http://quiz.ivillage.com/parenting/tests/whisper.htm
Turns out (shocker!) that James fits the following description...well DUH!

Spirited Toddler

The Spirited Toddler is extremely active physically, often willful, and may be prone to temper tantrums. She is very social and curious and will point to objects and reach out for them and for other kids early on. This child is the consummate adventurer; she will have a go at anything and is very determined. She displays a great sense of achievement when she accomplishes something. At the same time, she needs very clear boundaries so that she doesn't act like a steamroller, trampling anyone or anything in her path. Once they start crying, Spirited Toddlers have stamina and staying power, so you're in for a long haul if you don't have a good routine going. Given good guidance and an outlet for her energy, however, a Spirited Toddler can become a leader and very accomplished in whatever area interests her.

Ba-set-baaaawwww

James' new word is "basetbawl" for Basketball. Now we're pretty darned proud of the fact that he's mastered a three-syllable word...but the reason he's mastered it is because it is now his FAVORITE word. He kept calling it something else that we knew meant basketball but didn't sound anything like it, so we worked with him this weekend on pronouncing "basketball", and started walking around the house singing "baaa-seeeet-baaaawwl" over and over and over. He did this for about a good 2 hrs the first day, and then for a few mins at a time intermittantly since then.
When he says "momma" and waits for me to say "james", and we do that back and forth in varying voices, it's cute, it's funny, it's not annoying at all. Hearing "basetbawl" for the umpteenth time might be enough to make me stick and icepick in my ears.. no eardrums, no "basetbawl". :-)

There IS a silver lining!

You know, as crazy as our scheduled are right now, and as much as we both hate that Sterling is on his current schedule (not griping, there's just nothing to be done about it at the moment), one of the things it's done is to force James and I to get out of the house every weekend. Granted, some days this is easier said than done, but we now have standing Saturday morning playdates with Keaton and Stacy, which is really so much fun. We've had to find alot of interesting things to do, and as hectic as it can be, it's also really cool and I hope that James will remember how much fun we have.
We started a little early today (mommy did some planning.. can you stand it?) and did a Target run, followed by a trip to the new Brier Creek Chick Fil A for some free Chicken Minis (thanks, new CFA!).. which btw, ROCK! We then sat at the airport Observation Park (no planes coming OR going.. ??) while we munched. We then swung on over to the Kleys to pile into the Kley-mobile to head on over to the J C Raulston Arboretum near State. If you haven't been, you need to. Not only is it just a beautiful spot (and it's HUGE), but toddlers can pretty run wild.. and they did. Mommies can plan their yards or try to identify what's already growing (what's that mystery shrub near the driveway?) while kids can hide behind trees, follow trails, see fish, and just have a blast. I added the pics to the photo collection. A few things of note:

• The first pic is of James and I eating our breakfast.. just in case you were wondering.
  
• Those of you without toddlers might wonder why some pics are repeated.. those of you WITH won't.
• Those of you with will wonder how in the heck we got so many good ones.. see note #1, and also, luck.
• My favorite is the one where they're peeking through the holes in the fence. In the first one, they're both facing the camera. In #2, one of them is facing the other, then in #3 it's the other, then they're both facing the front again for the last one. What you don't see is me holding them up! (not important, just kinda funny)
• Jamye and Stacy Grose, that plant in Stacy's yard is a Chaenomeles: japonica "Atsuya Hamada". I thought it was a flowering quince.. that's close, right? Although.. check out this link, 'cause I *might* still be right..."Japanese quince: n. A common name for Chaenomeles speciosa" YEAH, baby!
  

Enjoy.. we certainly did!